Voting no preserves coastline

Residents want long-term solution

October 8, 2007|By Ben Walton

Reach 8 is the engineers' name for a stretch of our beach that encompasses Kreusler Park and the Lake Worth public beach and pier. From the mainland perspective, that's just north of Forest Hill Boulevard to just south of Lake Worth Road. The residents of the Town of Palm Beach will vote soon on a bond issue to supply funds to dredge and fill this strip of beach. I hope residents will vote no.

The north part of this, the beach along Phipps Ocean Park, underwent a similar dredge-and-fill project two years ago. Many readers no doubt have walked along this beach. Two years ago the beach was wide and flat. Now it looks much the same as it looked prior to the project -minus the marine life. Hopefully,Palm Beach voters are questioning what happened and why.

A dredge is like a giant underwater vacuum cleaner. With the help of a cutting head it sucks sand off the ocean floor. Then, aided by powerful pumps, the sediment is moved as a slurry through pipes onto the shore. A casual observer might think there is unlimited sand available for these projects. The reality is otherwise. The supply of suitable offshore sand available to be dredged is limited by depth, distance and proximity to reefs. Dade County started dredging and pumping sand onto their beaches long before we did, and they have run out of sand. Judging from the quality of the sand that was pumped here two years ago, and sand exploration reports, we're not far behind.

Regular South Florida beach sand moves north to south and between shallow off shore sandbars and the beach depending on the weather. The last dredging project deposited exceedingly fine sand, almost silt, that was littered with shells, rocks and chunks of semi-fossilized coral. Over the past two years we've seen what happens when such fine silty material is substituted for regular sand. It disappears. Instead of washing onto sandbars during storms then later migrating back onto the beach, it blows away and washes away. Instead of quickly setting to the bottom, it stays suspended in the water longer, allowing it to drift far away and causing turbidity. The water is murky, rather than the clear blue that is so important to our beachgoers and near shore underwater inhabitants.

If the voters of the Town of Palm Beach and the government regulators approve this project now, the dredging will resume. The people that make their living dredging sand will be happy, but we will be no closer to a long-term solution to preserving our coastline. A no-vote will send a message to the experts that we demand answers to what happens next before paying the costs, both economic and environmental, of this short-term solution.